I spent the other weekend running around Amsterdam with Shoshannah, Amber and the STA Travel Insider crew. If you haven’t already, check out the videos from the weekend in the YouTube playlist below. They’re a lot of fun!

Read more about my trip as the #STA Travel Insider in Amsterdam

Instagramming Amsterdam

Amsterdam came as a bit of a shock to me. I was expecting it to be a city full of drugs and sex, but it turns out it’s just a pretty awesome city. And way more beautiful than I was expecting. You hear about Amsterdam and its canals all the time, but wandering through the Jordaan neighborhood, it finally sinks in. This is a gorgeous city. I tried to capture that beauty on Instagram. Check out my favorite travel Instagram photos from the weekend below. And if you’ve got your own Instagram photos to share, join in on Skimbaco’s weekly Instagram Travel Thursday! Details at the end.

Yup, this is what Amsterdam looks likeI had my own little food tour while in Amsterdam, sampling as much Dutch food as I could get my hands on!The Spuistraat street is full of former squat houses and graffiti. We rented bikes at the nearby Yellow Bike rental shop.Thanks to a tip from a local, I made my way to Cafe Papeneiland which is famous for its apple pie. SO YUMMY!With Shoshannah, we explored the Albert Cuyp market and just generally had an awesome time in the De Pijp (The Pipe) neighborhood of AmsterdamAmsterdam’s Red Light District was not at all what I was expecting. I thought it’d be more seedier than it was. It was crowded on a weekend night full of tourists and crowds overflowing from bars — all intermixed between windows with mostly naked woman standing under red lights. Bizarre but I’m glad I saw it.Much of my weekend in Amsterdam was spent staring into cameras like this one. Fun experience!One of the best things I did in Amsterdam was rent a bike and ride over to the De Pijp neighborhood.The Jordaan neighborhood of Amsterdam was one of the prettiest — old row houses, canals and buildings covered in street art and graffiti.More wandering through the Jordaan and De Pijp neighborhoods where we spotted cool antique shops and other quirky buildings

Want some more Instagram wanderlust? Join Instagram Travel Thursday #IGTravelThursday: a weekly project with a mission to unite travelers, travel bloggers and other travel industry professionals and destinations on Instagram. Every week you can share a post about “Instagram travel” and add it to the link-up on the Skimbaco lifestyle website. Details here! And check out their Instagram Travel board on Pinterest too!

21 comments

Great photos of one of my favorite cities! The further away you go from the train station in Amsterdam, the more you’ll like it. One of my favorite Amsterdam neighborhoods is Plantage. Almost tourist-free, Plantage has an important old botanical/herb garden, zoo, big old windmill and the Tropenmuseum (museum of tropics). In Plantage I really feel I’m transported back to the 17th century.

Yes it definitely is, Renuka! I knew it would be pretty but came back blown away!

Fanny

12 April 2014

Love the photos! I’m from Belgium so I’ve seen Amsterdam a couple of times, as it was always pretty close. It’s cool to see the selection of photos you made, I guess most people would stick to the canal-shots. Never seen that Snakehouse though, looks great!

<3 Instagram! I'm more surprised than anyone that Amsterdam is worth more than a weekend. All this time I'd barely thought there was enough to see and do there to last a weekend — and here I am wanting more!

I remember thinking of that too when I first (well, that’s the only time) visited Amsterdam – I didn’t think it would be that pretty. And it looks like spring has arrived there too already, here in Norway it’s still snowing…

Amsterdam is so Instagram friendly. Hence the quantity of Amsterdam-based famous Instagrammers! I really loved photographing the city, especially the quieter canals (as opposed to the bustling area around the train station). Other cities like Haarlem and Delft were also quite photogenic.

Who is Adam?

I’ve worked as a bookseller, graphic designer, publisher, marketer, and writer. I’ve lived in Berlin, Tel Aviv, London, Sydney, Boston, and Dallas—but it was a 15-month trip around the world which brought it all together into this blog. Since early 2018, I live in New York City.

On my travel blog, you’ll find gay stories, nightlife tips, photos, and all-too-personal essays from my adventures around the world. Read how Iceland changed my life and set me on a path as a professional travel blogger.